


Bigger than your pride's worth

by SecondSecret



Series: You want a (revolution) [3]
Category: Les Misérables (2012), Les Misérables - All Media Types, Les Misérables - Schönberg/Boublil, Les Misérables - Victor Hugo
Genre: Alternate Universe - Acapella, Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, F/M, M/M, Multi
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-06-28
Updated: 2015-06-28
Packaged: 2018-04-06 14:38:25
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,342
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4225680
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SecondSecret/pseuds/SecondSecret
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Between the stowaway brother and her mechanical engineering classes, Éponine has more than enough to worry about. She has no time to babysit a social justice a capella group, or keep up with the unfolding drama around their leader and the guy he still hasn't realized is in love with him (seriously, how oblivious can one person get?)</p><p>Now if they would all get just the memo and stop lying on her floor.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Bigger than your pride's worth

**Author's Note:**

> This fic is part of the series "you want a (revolution)". If you're reading this, you should probably also be reading the Enjolras-POV companion piece "you come crashing in," which runs parallel.
> 
> There is also a prequel called "with your thirst and with my hunger." If you are here for the E/R, you can skip the prequel and this should still make sense, or you can read this now and read the prequel another time if the mood strikes you. If you want to read a semester of ABC acapella absurdity, Éponine eye-rolling, and a whole lot more Joly and Bossuet than your average Les Mis fic, I do suggest reading the prequel first.

_Hey brother, do you still believe in one another?_  
_Hey sister, do you still believe in love, I wonder?_  
_Oh, if the sky comes falling down for you,_  
_There’s nothing in this world I wouldn’t do._  
_What if I'm far from home?_  
_Oh, brother I will hear you call._  
_What if I lose it all?_  
_Oh, sister I will help you out._

 -- "Hey Brother," Avicii

[  
](https://loudr.fm/release/split-the-dark/kPDD8)

**January**

 

By the time Éponine reached campus, she had listened to the ABC's newest arrangement, _Hey Brother_ , about one hundred and fifty-eight times. In her defense,

1\. Enjolras and Combeferre were dueting. Combeferre had an effortlessly lovely voice, smooth and clear and just the right amount of rich. Enjolras, though not her favorite person in the world in terms of personality, had a great voice as well, even if he was hopelessly incapable of not sounding like a classically trained white boy. Better yet, it was a subject they both clearly cared about, and their voices rang with the conviction of it.

2\. It was an absurdly long train ride and she had nothing to entertain her except a phone that had neither wifi nor SIM card. What else was she supposed to do?

3\. She was getting a little sick of listening to songs about unrequited love.

The downside of the ABC being on winter tour in Paris was that the all-male (well, mostly male plus one Bahorel) acapella group contained all her friends on campus. All five of them. But as the train neared the station, she wasn't even sure if she was excited to see them again. The only thing she could look forward to was sleeping in her own bed, and even that was less excitement than stony relief.

She was too tired to be excited. Maybe tomorrow.

The train rattled to a noisy halt. The New England air was much chillier than the air back home had been. Her toes, in their dollar-store flip-flops, curled in protest. She hated flip-flops anyway. They rubbed between her toes, ripping blisters open before healing could even begin.

She clutched her long brown coat to her chest and took a deep breath of nose-numbingly cold air. "Home at last," she murmured, not sure if she believed it or if she just wanted to. How much difference was there?

"Uh, I don't think it's home until you get to the home."

Éponine did not yelp in surprise, but it was a close call. She did let go of her coat in shock.

Gavroche grinned up at her. "Unless you live in a train station? I wouldn't mind living in a train station."

"What are you doing here?" she hissed in an undertone, eyes flashing around the train platform.

His dark eyes twinkled with amusement. Anyone who thought sparkling eyes were a thing of storybooks hadn't met her brother. "Why are we whispering?" he whispered loudly, making a big show of fake-surreptitiously looking around. "Do you think the train tracks are onto us?"

He had a point. "How did you even get here?" she demanded, at a normal volume this time. Well, slightly higher than normal.

"Uh, I snuck on? Duh?" He raised both eyebrows.

"Well, _why_ did you even get here?"

"There's no point in going back with the ogre and her business partner unless you're there, and Monty Python was probably gonna kick me out as soon as you got here, so I figured I'd follow you!"

Éponine stared at him. Gavroche hadn't even come to the train station with her. He had left early. Now she supposed it had been to steal whatever was in his backpack.

"Don't worry, I can handle myself," he said cheerfully, which was objectively true, but the kid was thirteen. And Éponine was a mechanical engineering major; she barely had time to look after herself (well, herself and whichever tragic acapella boy was moping on her floor that evening.)

"I don't -- I only have one room key--"

He snorted. "Yeah, like I can't sneak in."

"I'm pretty sure there's a rule against kids in the dorms. There's a rule against pets, so."

He snorted again. "Yeah, like I can't keep a low profile."

Gavroche had never once in his existence tried to keep a low profile. Éponine wasn't entirely sure he knew what it meant.

"You need to go to school--"

"Not really."

She crossed her arms and glared at him.

"Okay, well, school won't be starting for what? Two weeks? Just enroll me here."

"Using what address?"

He raised both eyebrows.

"Point," she sighed. They had gone to plenty of schools under fake addresses. Éponine had handled the paperwork herself. It wouldn't be hard.

It would, in fact, be the easiest thing about this ridiculous idea.

"Look," he said. "I'm not going back there, so I can go somewhere else or I can come with you, but them's the options."

Gavroche was probably the only person in the world more stubborn than Éponine. Probably. Some of the ABC could probably give them a run for their money.

But the Thenardier children were good at running

"For future references," said Éponine, "I already regret going along with this stupid idea."

Gavroche beamed. "There's the spirit!"

***

"Christ," Gavroche breathed, looking around Éponine's dorm room. "This place is hi- _yooj."_

She kicked off her flip-flops and pulled on a pair of thick socks. Her feet felt stiff and heavy from cold.

"So where do you eat around here?"

"Dining halls don't open until the first day of classes." There was something else to worry about; dining halls limited both the food brought out and the people brought in.

"Those bastards." He shook his head. "Well, where's a good place to steal food?"

Éponine glanced longingly at her bed. She knew it was too early to sleep, and she knew she hadn't eaten since breakfast, but it just looked so comfortable...

She recalled a conversation on the ABC's GroupMe, the day they returned to campus to take off for Paris together.

 **Eagle:** _I think I left my password._  
**Eagle:** * _passport_  
**Eagle:** _Sorry autocorrect has decided it's life goal is fucking with me._  
**Eagle:** _(hahaha it just turned it's into it's LOOK IT DID IT AGAIN XD)_  
**R:** _Me too_  
**BUTTERCUP, BITCHES:** _Really? Because I think I left y'all illegal immigrant motherfuckers back in America._  
**BUTTERCUP, BITCHES:** _Also Eagle how could you possibly lose your passport??_  
**R:** _I keep forgetting you're new until you say things like that._

Éponine also tended to forget Bahorel was new. They were a bit separate from the rest of the group, not because they were the only non-male in an all-male a capella group but because the ABC was an undergraduate organization and Bahorel was a law student, with many many groups of friends of their own, most of whom seemed to be assholes. But they integrated well with the group, swinging foam swords with Grantaire in the Federal Dueling Association, doling out advice on love and fashion to Joly and Jehan, and flipping tables over whenever Grantaire reminded them that they went to law school. Or flipping tables over when they felt the occasions called for it. Or flipping tables over when they felt like flipping tables. She was surprised the group still let Bahorel indoors.

Then again, they had yet to kick Grantaire out of the group or force Bossuet to move into a a giant hamster bubble that would protect him from harm. They were permissive that way.

Alternately, they thought Bahorel would find something new to break, Grantaire would just keep coming to rehearsals "for moral support," and Bossuet would get enough rocks lodged in the air holes that he would choke to death in his protective bubble.

 **BUTTERCUP, BITCHES:** _I mean HOW DID THEY LET YOU INTO THE COUNTRY without a passport?_  
**R:** _They saw his big bald head and said oh god get the fuck out of Canada we don't care if it's legal._  
**Eagle:** _I had the passport getting into the country! I lost it halfway here!_  
**R:** _Amazing._  
**Enjolras:** _Grantaire, how are you possibly mocking him when you forgot your passport as well?_  
**R:** _Um, who said anything about my passport?_  
**R:** _What I said was that I, too, share the goal of fucking with Eagle. Not that he needs help with that_.  
**Eagle:** _Aww, R, you took the words right out of my mouth. :P_

"One of my friends is on campus," she said, pulling her phone out. "He lives off-campus. Might have food."

Technically, Bossuet lived nowhere. Whatever nameless forces governed the universe had decided that Bossuet wasn't allowed to have nice things, so he had managed to end up homeless in college. Luckily the nice things ban didn't extend to friends, so he was currently staying at what Éponine thought of as the Triumvirate House, home of Enjolras, Combeferre, and Courfeyrac. How the three of them managed to share a house _and_ lead an acapella group _and_ still like each other was beyond her, but from her observation, they excelled at all three.

Bossuet had, with the dogged resourcefulness familiar to someone who had even less money than he did, recently acquired an iPhone, so she could use her wifi to message him.

 **From Éponine:** _You don't happen to have food, do you?_

She set the phone down and turned to Gavroche sternly. "My suitemates aren't back yet, so make a nuisance of yourself all you want, but once they're around you have to keep it down. They're a bunch of bitches. Don't you dare," she added, when she saw Gavroche peer speculatively out into the common room. "Pranking is not keeping a low profile."

"It is if you don't get caught," he retorted.

They weren't really bitches. It was more just that they didn't like Éponine much. They had tried to, initially, but their idea of fun involved watching movies and going to restaurants and other things that Éponine didn't have time for, and at some point the inside jokes and cliquish closeness evolved into a fog so thick she couldn't see through it if she tried.

She didn't mind much. She had Bossuet, who was hilarious and unflaggingly cheerful and just the right level of wicked. She had Jehan, who was such a good person his very existence bewildered her sometimes. She had Combeferre, who was more sensible than the rest of them combined. She had Grantaire, who was...

Well, Grantaire was Grantaire. But he knew the best places to get Chinese food at two in the morning, so that was something.

(She didn't know if she had Marius nowadays.)

Maybe Bossuet wouldn't even reply. He might not be interested in seeing her. Especially if his and his boyfriend's new girlfriend was on campus already.

As if summoned by the thought, her phone pinged.

 **From Lesgles de Meaux:** _Food, food, everywhere, and not a competent person to cook (autocorrect tried to turn that to "book" I guess that's a compliment?) Since the dining halls are starving us (fucking monopolies, am I right?), I might just turn delirious and eat an entire box of pasta. Raw._  
**From Lesgles de Meaux:** _Come take some of these calories off my hands for me before disaster strikes?_

She had been silly to doubt. Bossuet managed to balance two significant others and two best friends; he wasn't the type to forget the rest of his life over one girl. That was someone else.

"Can I trust you not to make trouble while I get us food?" she asked Gavroche. She couldn't say it with a straight face, so she couldn't blame him when he laughed.

"You can trust me not to get caught?"

"That's all a big sister can ask for," Éponine said. She gave him her key card. "It's the only one I've got. Do not lose it, and do not get out of wifi range."

Then she hurried out of the room, as if she could somehow race away from the awareness of just what she was getting herself into.

***

The first thing Bossuet did when Éponine opened the door was ask, "if I hug you, are you going to punch me in the face?"

Éponine was startled. The ABC was a huggy bunch, but it never seemed to extend to her. "Go ahead," she said, trying to sound casual about it.

She did not realize "hug" meant "attempt to scoop off ground." Since Éponine was about a head taller than him, and also since Bossuet was Bossuet, this promptly led to them both tumbling onto the ground, her on top and her elbow accidentally ramming into his stomach.

"What in the _world,"_ Éponine gasped between giggles, rolling off him and blowing hair out of her mouth, "could possibly have convinced you that would end well?"

Even though he was the one more likely to be in pain, Bossuet was laughing much harder than she was. Typical.

The familiar laughter struck her with an abrupt urge to cuddle against him. He was so much warmer than the outside, and he was safe, someone who never asked anything from her and who Éponine would never pursue or be pursued by.

She doubted he would mind if he did. He might not even mind if she burst out crying all over him, but she would mind that.

Éponine climbed up, brushing imaginary dirt from her theoretically floor-length blue skirt. She had owned it so long the fabric was more gray and the hemline had transformed into artistic tatters, revealing her bare feet. She offered a hand; Bossuet was infamously clumsy, and she suspected he would find a way to fall out the door and crack his skull on the stairs, even with Éponine in the doorway. He took her hand, still laughing.

"Damn," he said, rubbing his stomach where her elbow had been, "that's gonna leave a bruise."

"How did you not see that coming?"

"Eh." He grinned. "An Éponine elbow bruise is a badge of honor."

"Usually it's a badge that whoever has it is an asshole."

He raised his eyebrows and smiled a fond but deeply skeptical smile. "Get in here and help me eat Courf's food."

"That's the spirit," Éponine said, then frowned to herself when she realized she was mimicking Gavroche. Weren't younger siblings supposed to take after their older siblings, not the other way around?

Bossuet, bustling her inside, didn't notice the frown. Seeing the empty house was strange. She had never been in it when there weren't multiple people. She had rarely been in it when there weren't multiple streamers.

Bossuet had once set a toaster on fire, as Grantaire had reminded them all so many times that she couldn't look at toast without thinking of the ABC, so it went without saying that Éponine would handle any cooking that went on. "You caught my secret plot," he said as she opened the pantries without asking permission. "I don't care about you, I just want to eat something besides sandwiches."

Their kitchen was the strange eclectic mix she might expect from three college boys, one of whom was Indian, one of whom was from Honduras, and one of whom was on the meal plan because he couldn't cook.

Boiling pasta or rice would be the easiest base for a meal, but she wanted to feed Gavroche far sooner than the time it would take to boil either of those.

"I can't stay long," she warned as she pulled out a tin of pre-boiled black beans and dumped them into a pot. She wasn't entirely sure what to do with them, but beans were healthy. "I have lots of unpacking to do." She had no unpacking to do whatsoever.

He laughed again. "Nophelia," he said, using the nickname Grantaire had given her when she fiercely objected to the nickname Ophelia, "you got to campus on the literal first day the dorms opened. You are allowed to eat and make merry for an evening. Workaholics Anonymous will not kick you out."

She diced an onion and added it to the pot, raw. It was easy to ignore her eyes stinging; they had been doing that for weeks. "And Workaholics Anonymous is what, Jehan, Combeferre, and Feuilly?"

"How should I know? They're anonymous." This earned a snort from Éponine as she added a chopped tomato to the pot and turned it to boil. "But having lived with Enjolras for months, I have to say that there was an oversight in your list."

"You shock me." Éponine wasn't a fan of Enjolras. He was absurdly beautiful in a boring, classical, blonde-hair blue-eyes rosy-cheeked way. His charisma, when he used it, could send a stadium of listeners reeling. He had rich parents, and a gorgeous voice, and some truly excellent friends.

Éponine hated people who had everything.

Also, there was the Grantaire thing. She was objectively aware that Enjolras could not be blamed for the Grantaire thing, which could more accurately be described as "Grantaire's Enjolras thing," but if emotions and objective awareness lined up, she would have spent far fewer hours of her life dancing around Marius Pontmercy, longing for a smile or even a warm glance.

She started to eat an orange as she sprinkled salt into the pot.

"That smells amazing," Bossuet groaned. "I owe you one."

"Oh please." Bossuet had once missed class registration because he filled out a stranger's form, on purpose, to save the stranger from missing said registration. He owed the universe jack-shit, and the universe owed him a unicorn.

Also, Éponine was planning to take at least three-quarters of it home.

She finished half the orange and squeezed the other half into the bean-and-tomato-and-onion mix, because why not.

"I hear you humming _Hey Brother,"_ said Bossuet gleefully.

Éponine hadn't heard herself humming it, but she wasn't surprised. Singing and humming without noticing was pretty typical for her, and _Hey Brother_ had been stuck in her head since she heard it. "It's almost like I enjoy your music or something." She picked an avocado that looked like it hadn't gone bad yet and started slicing it, as well.

"R arranged it," said Bossuet, and if he thought he was keeping the pride from his voice, he was wrong. "We can say what we want about the asshole, but when he's on his shit, he's really on it."

Éponine had spent large chunks of first semester wavering between thinking of Grantaire and Bossuet as best friends and being worried they were going to kill each other. She was at this point convinced that they were best friends (for one thing, Bossuet had said so), but she wasn't yet convinced they weren't going to kill each other.

"Sorry you missed tour," she said, trying to scoop the avocado from its peel. Green streaks remained. It was hard to take something out of where it belonged.

Bossuet waved the apology away. "Yeah, I totally wanted to wander around the city of smokers and racists. Though I think they hate Arabs more than black people, so I hope Feuilly's doing okay."

"I literally cannot imagine Feuilly not doing okay," said Éponine, squeezing line onto the avocado. She added lime to the beans as well. The mingled citrus scents dizzied her with awareness of her hunger.

"Fair," said Bossuet. "You got any idea what you're taking this semester?"

"I'm a Mech-E major, I'm taking three classes I need for my major and one class to get a social science req out of the way.

"Ah, the wonders of planning ahead," said Bossuet, who was in his eighth semester of his undergraduate career and had at least another to go, more likely two. Éponine had gathered that this was more about terrible luck with scheduling and getting enrolled in classes he wanted to be enrolled in than it was about failing to plan ahead. "R and Enjolras are shopping a class together."

Éponine accidentally dropped her lime into the pot. "That sounds like a terrible idea."

"Yeah," said Bossuet with relish. "But won't it be fun to watch?"

**Author's Note:**

> The title comes from the song "I'd Do It All Again," originally by Corinne Bailey Rae. If you like acapella and have money to spend, I highly highly recommend purchasing the Yale Out of the Blue cover, available on [itunes](https://itunes.apple.com/us/artist/yale-out-of-the-blue/id475040762iTunes) and [loudr](https://loudr.fm/release/split-the-dark/kPDD8), both because the singer is my voicecast for Combeferre and because it is tied with G-Men's "Mykonos" as my favorite recorded piece of collegiate acapella. (If you do not feel like spending money, I still suggest listening to the sample, because then you will know what my Combeferre's voice sounds like!)


End file.
